Here, you are urged and encouraged to run your mouths about something important.

Monday, April 30, 2012

Is there a Chechnya Spring coming?

As if the world needed to worry about another extremist Islamic hot spot, we might have one and it's in Russia's back yard. The Chechen rebels are known to be among the most savage of Jihadists on the globe. They were behind the Beslan school massacre in 2004. In 2006, Russia ultimately killed the Chechen leader behind it - Shamil Basayev in 2006.

Russian forces eventually suppressed Chechnya's Islamic uprising and put a man named Ramzan Kadyrov in power there to maintain control of the country while remaining in Russia's good graces for doing so. Kadyrov, a Chechen Muslim, was basically faced with two choices. Support the rebels and be on the wrong side of a Russian victory or run the country on Russia's behalf and reap the benefits. He chose the latter course but may be getting a little bolder these days.

Chechnya's government is openly approving of families that kill female relatives who violate their sense of honor, as this Russian republic embraces a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam after decades of religious suppression under Soviet rule.

In the past five years, the bodies of dozens of young Chechen women have been found dumped in woods, abandoned in alleys and left along roads in the capital, Grozny, and neighboring villages.

Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov publicly announced that the dead women had “loose morals” and were rightfully shot by male relatives. He went on to describe women as the property of their husbands, and said their main role is to bear children.

“If a woman runs around and if a man runs around with her, both of them should be killed,” said Mr. Kadyrov, who often has stated his goal of making Chechnya “more Islamic than the Islamists.”

In today’s Chechnya, alcohol is all but banned, Islamic dress codes are enforced and polygamous marriages are supported by the government.

No doubt, as Kadyrov looks around and sees the Arab Spring give rise to the Muslim Brotherhood, he may more emboldened to push an Islamic agenda. Perhaps he's banking on Russia having bigger fish to fry in Syria.